Life Span Development and Personality Paper
PSY/300

Life span development is a study into a person’s life. The type of person, the person’s traits and what makes him or her different is the building blocks of a person’s personality. This paper will introduce the study of the life span and personality of shock rocker Marilyn Manson. It will be discussing Manson’s environmental development. It will discuss the moral psychological development, social support, and family support of Marilyn Manson. Each area helped in molding Manson and gave Manson adjustment to his life. It will show how his morals differ from societies morals, and how he was and still is perceived in society as a “Shock Rocker.”

Marilyn Manson was born Brian Hugh Warner, January 5, 1969 in the town of Canton which is in the state of Ohio, to Hugh, and Barb Warner. At a tender age of five Manson entered in the Heritage Christian School. At this time Manson became instilled with fear, and became terrorized by the Christian school. The Coughlin (n.d.) website states he believed he was cheated and abused due to the teachings of the arrival of Christ and the apocalyptic conspiracy theories preached at his school. To complicate Manson’s childhood Manson suffered molestation from a neighbor and did not inform his mother for a long time of the molestation.
Manson’s environment was at first church and family. Going to a faith-oriented school Manson was educated about how he would be damn for his sins, which made Manson fear religion. As stated by Coughlin (n.d.), “Nightmares soon visited his 12-year-old mind. “I was thoroughly terrified by the idea of the end of the world and the Antichrist. So I became obsessed with it, watching movies like . . .A Thief in the Night, which described very graphically people getting their heads cut off because they hadn’t received 666 tattoos on their forehead” (para. One). His sexual aversions’ followed him into adulthood and is to this day exhibited in his music and music videos. At an age of sexual curiosity, 16, Manson found his grandfather’s porn magazines, which is one of Manson’s environmental influences. When a teenager is exploring more in the lines of physiology, behavior, and cognitive changes, Manson was exploring his sexuality. He went from making porno magazine to sell to classmates to hiding torn pages of his grandfather’s collection under rocks down their drive way.
In his autobiography, “The Long Hard Road out of Hell.” (1998) Manson states that he never did well in school. He believed that most of his education was self-taught after classes, where he would role-play, read books about Jim Morrison, write poems, short stories, and listen to records. He thought music to be healing, and he believed that music had no rules or judgment. He believed that he was accepted for who he was. By the tenth grade Manson talked and convinced his parents to let him attend a public school. Once Manson finished college he, and his family moved to Florida where he attended college. Once out of college in 1990 Manson fashioned together a band and named it, “Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids.” Each member of the band chose stage names by combining a name of a super model and a name of a serial killer. Brian Warner chose Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson, and this was the beginning of the shock rocker Marilyn Manson.
Moral psychological development was a troubling area for Manson. Manson is known for his lewd actions on stage and in his music videos. According to "Psychology and Morality (n.d.), Level I: preconvention, behaviors are encouraged by your individual’s egocentricities. Stage 1 of Level 1 states that chastisement and compliance orientation is when an individual submits to the procedures and edicts due to the potential undesirable penalties of disobeying. An example is "One does not steal for the reason that he or she could get caught and go to jail." Stage 2 of Level 1 is hedonistic orientation, and an example is, whatsoever that gratifies an individual’s own needs or benefits is reflected as "right" or "If an individual helps his or her grandmother she will remember him or her in her will" (3 levels and Six Stages of Moral Development). People define his or her personal moral values and codes of behavior, detached from the preexistent rules of the general public. Manson’s public display of lewd conduct, while in the lime light of the music industry shows that Manson disobeyed laws of church by making his music satanic and sexually orientated. He was, and is motivated by his own self-interest and is proved by his continued crass actions and lewd music. Doing what he wants on stage or in his music videos tell society that he does not care what he or she has to say or think about his way of musical styling. This help’s society deem him a “shock rocker.”
Manson let people see his way of thinking through his music, be it about religion, drugs or sex, and this goes with hedonistic orientation. He satisfies his own needs to display his lewd or crass behavior, and he deems it correct to do so. Even though society looks down on Marilyn Manson at that time and now, his family continues to give him the moral support he needs.
There are two personality theories is perceived in Marilyn Manson. Cognitive social theory tells everyone about Manson’s personal value. Brian warner wanted to play music and sing, and to create a new image for his self. Many things have gone against Manson when he took up the “shock rocker” position. At one time Manson was arrested in Michigan for lewd conduct at a concert, and to the Columbine incident where Manson believe he had to make a statement that he was portrayed as a “scapegoat and was being blamed for the children’s actions” (Gorgan, 2009, para. 1). Manson stated, “I essentially lost everything because of Columbine but, if it happened now, it just wouldn’t have the same impact.” Manson says. “There has to be that first person who takes the arrows in the back and I guess that was me. If there was a Grammy Award for death toll, it would be mine. I don’t think anyone has been blamed for as much violence as me.” the rocker adds, suggesting that individuals still fail to recognize the dissimilarity between art and real life, as he disputed on many other times before”(Gorgan, 2009, para. 4).
To settle on a theoretical approach concerning Manson is difficult. His ideas of religion was altered and was “sexually activated” as a child. Manson went against societies normal to speak up for his ways. Manson has represented the humanistic theory by not changing his ways of thinking because society tries to tell him what is right and wrong. In doing so he has grown and prospered, in the ways he thinks, the ways he has overcome difficult times during his life, and he has shown that the theories discussed in this paper is applied sporadically through his life.
No matter what any person has to say or feels about Marilyn Manson, he has made it to stardom as the shock rocker. He set his goals and reached them through the controversy in his life. Not all of society supported him at that time and many still do not. He continues to have his family giving him the love and support he needs. The fans that support him learns positive lessons, which is be true to own self and society can dictate to everyone, but one’s self can form his or her own ideas, persona, and come out with a wonderful outcome.

References
Coughlin, P. (n.d.). How Shock Musician Marilyn Manson. Retrieved from http://www.mtio.com/articles/aissar47.htm
Gorgan, E. (2009, June 13). Columbine Massacre Cost Me Everything, Marilyn Manson Says. Softpedia. Retrieved from http://news.softpedia.com/news/Columbine-Massacre-Cost-Me-Everything-Marilyn-Manson-Says-114107.shtm
Manson, M., & Strauss, N. (1998). The long hard road out of hell. New York, New York: Regan Books.
Psychology and Morality. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://homepages.rpi.edu/~verwyc/Chap3law.htm